Which Network Attached Storage (NAS) for the Mac?

J

jhd

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I have a MacBook Pro and i'm running low on disk space...

I've been looking at:
Western Digital NetCenter
Maxtor Shared Storage II
Buffalo Linkstation Pro

Does anyone have any experiences with the above (or others) and a Mac?

For the vast majority of the time i'm going to be accessing the NAS over a wireless network (I'm going to plug it into my router), so I'm guessing that speed is not really going to be a deciding factor; as i'll be limited to speed of my wireless network (54mbps - if i'm lucky!).

What i really want is a device that weeks as seemlessly as possible with MacOS, and ideally comes with Mac Software that will allow me to schedule backups. I'm not looking for an overly sophistacated NAS.

I've looked at the various corporate websites, but they are lacking when it comes to illustrating the "Mac user experience".

Top of my list at the moment is the Buffalo Linkstation Pro because it has AFP support, which i'm lead to beleive is a plus for Mac users (although i'm not sure why), but the backup software it comes with is for Windows users only. Maybe you can't have everything.
 
I have read good things about the QNAP TS-101 as well, although I have no personal experience with any of these.

Of course, the best solution is still generally another Mac on the network -- thus the predominant use of XServes as file servers.
 
billbaloney said:
I have read good things about the QNAP TS-101 as well, although I have no personal experience with any of these.

Of course, the best solution is still generally another Mac on the network -- thus the predominant use of XServes as file servers.
Click to expand...

I did look at the QNAP, but it costs around 175 pounds without a hard
disk, which is about he same cost as the Buffallo Linkstation Pro
with a 300gb disk included.

I also considered the option of buying an old PowerMac G4, having
seen them go cheaply on eBay, but as Eric2006 points out; the hard
disk capacity is limited. Besides, once you've bought an old Mac and
equipped it with hard disks (the old ones i've seen on ebay generally
come with no more than 20gb) it's probably going to cost around the
same or more than a NAS - although it would no doubt be more
flexible, so i'll give that option some more thought.

The LaCie does look like a good alternative, and it's sold in Apple
Stores (an endorcement?), and it supports AFP.
 
Have a look at the Smartdisk SOHO NAS drives in either 250Gb or 400Gb sizes. They feature most of the usuals but can also be setup as a print or ftp server.
 
I just learned the hard way about the limitations of the Maxtor Shared Storage II: it uses a FAT32 filesystem, which means that it has Windows-style restrictions on filename length and character set. Among other things that means that it won't support a normal iTunes library (when I tried to load mine up, maybe 5% of the songs had filenames which were too long for it).

To add insult to injury, when Seagate bought Maxtor they shut down the maxtor.com site that the software links to for documentation -- so you'll be trying to figure out its confusing interface without a manual.

I'm still researching a Mac-friendly NAS solution. Here's one recent summary on the subject: http://www.bad-seed.org/dwelling/2007/03/notes-on-nas-and-mac-os-x/

Price aside, an Airport Extreme Base Station sounds like it should at least solve the filename issue.

Anybody have any other solutions to offer?
 
I can understand why Seagate might have closed the Maxtor website down, but from a customer service point it is inexcusable.

I went for the Buffalo Linkstation Pro (320gb) as my NAS. I would recommend it on the grounds that it was fairly straight forward to set up, it's quiet, the power supply is built in, and IMO looks good (which is important if it's sitting in your living room).

I soon filled up the space on the Linkstation Pro and needed to expand it. There are 2 USB ports at the back into which to plug another drive and i went for a Buffalo Drivestation (500gb). I was under the impression, perhaps naively, that the two drives would then appear as a single 820gb drive on my network. I sent an email to buffalo support but never got a reply, even to tell me that i'm an idiot - something to consider for future buffalo customers.

Since excepting that the 2 drives remain separate things have been fine until i needed to leave the house in a hurry a couple of days ago and took the Drivestation with me thinking that i could simply plug it directly into my laptop and take the files off as needed. Unfortunately my laptop can't read the Drivestation for some reason and wants to format it. Not sure why. Anybody got any ideas?

Sorry, i'm waffling. Riddle: i can recommend the Linkstation Pro. But if you run out of space, i'm not sure yet that i can recommend the Drivestation as an upgrade. However, Buffalo Customer support is non existent - so if you do have a problem be prepared to have to figure it out yourself!
 
Thanks for the tip, jhd. I see by the LinkStation Pro manual that its internal drive is formatted in XFS (download at http://www.buffalotech.com/support/downloads/linkstation-pro/ - see p. 28). Wikipedia says that XFS is a Unix filesystem commonly available in Linux. Does that mean that it's Mac OS X-friendly and avoids the filename problems I experienced with the Maxtor's FAT32 filesystem?

I'm starting to wonder whether I should just get an Airport Extreme Base Station and hang a Mac-formatted USB drive off of it. Although when I read reviews of the AEBS I see a lot of people reporting unreliability on its part, too. :-(
 
I'm not IT savvy enough to be able to tell you what the short comings of XFS might be. However, until i recently transferred it to the Drivestation, i did have my iTunes library on the Linkstation Pro and did not experience any problems.

I have also backed up all my documents, photos, and emails to the Linkstation Pro without problems.
 
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